


The Room Of Allsight

by SilverHalos88



Series: Time Limited Love [6]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Anger, Arguing, Barely Alive, Betrayal, Breaking The Rules, F/M, Forbidden Love, Love, Secret Relationship, TARDIS Rooms, The Vault (Doctor Who), Two Parts Left, almost dead, secret room, timelords
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:32:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29211168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverHalos88/pseuds/SilverHalos88
Summary: “As Missy’s life hangs by a thread, a new challenge comes into their relationship: Their secret is out, and Nardole, Missy’s other jailor, knows the truth about their secret, forbidden love. How will he react to this unexpected revelation? And will Missy survive to find out? With their options running out, the Doctor once again considers the unthinkable – To bend the laws of time in order to protect that which he loves most. But for all things there is a cost…”This is the sixth part of my ongoing 12th Doctor/Missy story which sees them as an established couple trying to keep their relationship alive in spite of seemingly overwhelming forces trying to stop them. I’m not entirely happy with this one so bear with me a little. There’s only a few parts left now, so stay tuned… (Also please forgive any lapse in lore knowledge on my part)
Relationships: Twelfth Doctor/Missy
Series: Time Limited Love [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2103555
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	The Room Of Allsight

Nardole could hardly believe his ears.  
“You can’t be serious.” He said for the eighth time. By this point he was just saying it to himself, but things still hadn’t sunk in. He looked at the Doctor, at the frowning face that told him he was completely serious, then past him at Missy. She was still laying down on the sofa, asleep, practically innocent looking. It would be easy to think she was just a normal, severely injured, person. Maybe that what how she had fooled the Doctor, Nardole wondered. He had noted how the Doctor had placed himself between him and her.  
“Nardole, there’s not many other ways I can say it. I love her. And she loves me.” The Doctor said defiantly. Nardole just shock his head.  
For the last twenty minutes the Doctor had explained how, after decades of spending time together, they had both begun to change, opening themselves up to ideas and possibilities that had previously been unthinkable. In amongst the storm of cautious improbable discoveries, the two had stumbled upon something that was in a league of impossibility all its own. The seed of love had quietly taken root inside both of them, pulling on emotions and hopes that had long existed in various forms. It had taken a long time, even from Timelord perspectives, for them to really accept their feelings for each other, to accept that they even existed at all, but when they had it had been like a dam breaking. There had been no turning back after that, not that either of them would ever have wanted to. They had fought for too hard for too long, against circumstance, the world and indeed each other, to let it go now, or at least that was what the Doctor had said over and over again. Nardole found it hard to believe, let alone accept. He shook his head.  
“No Doctor, no. This is wrong. Its more than wrong, its insanity.” Nardole said quietly, fearful of waking Missy. He kept glancing over the Doctor’s shoulder, wondering how he could be so calm.  
“Yes, I agree with you on that, it is totally insane. But that’s what makes it so special, so incredible.” The Doctor said, his voice full of sincere belief. Nardole shook his head.  
“You loved Rose! You loved River! You can’t love her! It’s not possible. How can it be? After all the things she has done, all the people she had killed, the people she has taken from you!” Nardole exclaimed, unable to stop his voice from rising slightly. Behind them, Missy turned her head in her sleep and groaned, causing the Doctor to turn and look back at her to make sure she was alright.  
In truth he needed a moment. While he wasn’t angry, yet, what Nardole had said had hit him harder than he wanted to admit. Even now he found himself occasionally thinking of Rose and River, as well as the others. Love and relationships were complicated for Timelords. Living so many lives, as so many people, it gave rise to difficult scenarios sometimes. Even though his time with them was over, even though in many regards he had been a different person, they had all been his great loves. He still cared for all those he had found a special connection with, even those who were long gone and lost to the flames of war. Those connections were precious; they weren’t worth any more or any less than what he now had with Missy. They were just different, products of their moments, and each one lost not just to the passage of time, but to the person who had felt those things. He was different now, and while he would always care for them, all of them, those parts of him were no more. It was so difficult to explain, even he himself didn’t really understand it fully. But that was what made Missy so special. She knew these things, knew the confusion and complexities, had experienced them herself. With her he had been able to embrace the fact that he didn’t want to move on, to leave another love behind.  
That’s why he couldn’t lose her.  
“She’s different now. We’re both different.” The Doctor said as he turned back to Nardole.  
“She has brainwashed you. That’s the only explanation. This is all some kind of trick, a way to trap you into trusting her so she can escape.” Nardole said. The Doctor shock his head.  
“She could have escaped anytime she wants. She wants to change, that’s why she came here in the first place. And besides, we’ve been all over time and space already and she has always come back. You’ve nothing to worry about.” He said, but Nardole’s face filled with anger.  
“That’s another thing! You vowed to keep her here for a thousand years, to watch over her. You made an oath!” The Doctor smiled mischievously.  
“Well no one said those thousand years had to be consecutive. Technically, we’re still on track. And she’s never been out of my sight.” He said, knowing it was a lie. Missy had earned enough of his trust that he could give her some leeway, but Nardole wouldn’t understand that. As it was, he looked like a kettle that had been at the boil for far too long already.  
“You have been compromised. You have to understand that, surely? Or at least admit that it’s a possibility. She is playing a long game here. She’s going to turn against you at your weakest moment and there will be nothing you can do to stop her. Missy is dangerous, and I can’t believe you can’t see it.”  
“Oh I see it. I know what a risk she is. But I’m not compromised. What we have is real. There’s no doubt in my mind, and I won’t hear another word against it. You don’t have to like it Nardole, but you do need to accept it.” The Doctor said, a hint of menace and threat in his voice. Nardole just stared at him, a mixed look on his face. The alarm and anger the Doctor recognised instantly, but it took him a moment longer to recognise the other emotion, the one that Nardole couldn’t hide from his eyes.  
It was disappointment.  
“I’m going to check the security systems.” Nardole said softly, then turned away and headed for the entrance of the vault. The Doctor remained still, watching him walking away. He wanted to say something, but no words came to mind. As he reached the door Nardole turned back to look him.  
“I hope you know what you are doing. Its only a matter of time until the Shadow Proclamation finds a way to stop the both of you, before they find this place. There’s no second chances in this kind of game.” With that Nardole left the room, his words hanging in the air between them. 

“The bald bloke doesn’t like me, does he? Can’t say I’m that fond of him either.” Missy said softly as the Doctor checked the new vacuum dressing he had placed over her wounds. They were finally showing some signs of healing, but it was torturously slow. Even with the help of the full med kit he had retrieved from the TARDIS, her situation remained perilous. A significant part of him had expected to find her dead when he had returned from his frantic sprint to the TARDIS and back, moving so fast he would have put an Olympic sprinter to shame. She was a hair’s breadth away from succumbing to death, but he had managed to pull her back. He just didn’t know for how long.  
“He just doesn’t know you. Give it time, let him see what I see.” The Doctor said as he pulled down her top, covering the dressing.  
“Oh please, he’s not worth my time.” Missy said, wincing with pain. The Doctor placed the back of his palm on her forehead. She still had a temperature.  
“Get some rest. You can tell me how unworthy he is later.” The Doctor smiled, trying to reassure her.  
“Doctor’s orders, huh?” She said, smiling back, but it was an empty gesture. They didn’t have to say what they were really feeling; it was clear in the way they looked at each other. “Did you check the secret compartment?”  
“I did. I put the laser/sonic screwdriver back in there. I saw your other project too. We’ll talk about that more when you’re better.” The Doctor said, and he knew she understood.  
The Elysian Field generator device.  
The fact she had started to build one was remarkable. The specialized energy fields had been banned long ago by the Timelords. They were capable of circumventing the block the Timelords placed on regeneration energies, enabling endless regeneration cycles and almost true immortality for an individual. Of course there was a cost though. The fields were complicated and incredibly hard to produce and control. By breaking a Timelord down into their component molecules while at the same time preserving their consciousness, it opened up the possibility for all kinds of things, all kinds of nature defying miracles. No wonder Missy had been trying to make one. The one in her possession was nowhere near done yet, but what was there could be adapted for all kinds of other medical purposes. That was, if they ever had a chance to use it. Just having the plans for one was a capital offence.  
“What are you going to do now?” Missy asked, already feeling the pull of unconsciousness and doing her best to fight it off for a little longer. The Doctor just starred at her, his eyes heavy with the weight of a decision that he was still wrestling with. It was like watching a star fight against the pull of a black hole, and all Missy wanted to do was reach out and take his hand, tell him it was going to be alright, even when deep down she wasn’t certain of that at all. Before she could move the Doctor spoke.  
“I’m going to get some answers.” He said. It was a simple enough statement, but there was vagueness in his voice, a sense of the cryptic that verged on the forbidden. His eyes flickered as the decision was finally made, and in that moment Missy knew what he was going to do.  
“Be careful.” She managed to say as the tiredness and the drugs in her system finally got the better of her. The last thing she felt was the Doctor squeeze her hand as her eyes slowly slipped closed, but her thoughts took a moment longer to fade.  
He was going to cheat, the sound of her own voice echoing around her head, and it was going to be remarkable.

It was several hours before Missy’s stats stabilized enough for the Doctor to feel comfortable enough to leave her. She was still in a dangerous position, but it was unlikely anything would happen in the next few hours. Her wounds had finally closed up and the internal burns caused by the energy bolt were starting to break down, allowing fresh tissue to grow. There was still a risk of her system going into shock, and there were a lot of toxins in her system, but he had set up an alarm in case she started to go downhill again. He had done everything he could to help her without taking her out of the vault. And this was worth the risk.  
The TARDIS hummed nervously. It knew what he was about to ask of it, and it didn’t approve. Already it had reconfigured itself a handful of times to stop him from finding the room he required. It had only been after he had explained what had happened to Missy that it had finally relented. If there was anything in the universe that had come to love Missy as much as he did, it was the TARDIS, though with that said half the time the mercurial machine had a plan of its own the Doctor couldn’t even guess at, so who knew what it really felt. He was just thankful for now that it was cooperating, especially considering his destination.  
The lights of the room flickered on slowly, as if to show just how long it had been since anyone had entered. On the surface it was a deceptively simple space. Four tiers of recessed circular flooring dropped down towards the center of the room, where a large empty tube reached up to the domed ceiling above. Aside from stubborn shadows that refused to fade, there was nothing other than ancient Gallifreyan glyphs marking the walls and floor of the room.  
If he didn’t know better, he would say that the room of allsight was just another storage area. In a way, maybe it was.  
The Doctor walked down the series of circular flooring until he was standing before the empty tube. It felt so wrong to be here again. Most didn’t even know of the existence of these rooms, let alone its purpose. The secret truth was that almost every TARDIS had one, hidden and buried awa somewhere in their depths. Even the official pilot, those who didn’t steal their TARDISs, rarely knew of its existence. The room was created only for the most extreme purposes, so much so that not even the threat of genocide was enough to normally grant access. On the rare occasions that it was opened, the users were often totally ostracised afterwards. The use of it was a sin of the highest order, an afront to Timelord culture. It was both a sacrifice and a punishment, yet here he was. Again. Yet this time he aimed to do more than just peak.  
He placed one hand on the glass and closed his eyes. The allsight room’s psychic security system was built into the very heart of the TARDIS’s foundation programming, a core component that helped to shape the very concept of the machine. From the moment his hand had touched the glass it had infiltrated his mind, checking both his identity and temporal alignment, making sure he was well aware of what he was about to do, about the potential consequences of the actions carried out here. It interrogated every part of his mind, like an army of ants had invaded his brain and were chewing on the connections between his neurons. He forced himself to take a breath, to remained focus on his purpose. The security would try to dissuade him, to turn his mind around in countless different ways. It would do everything it could to test his commitment to his cause, going so far as to bend the flow of time around him to drag out the questioning over hundreds, if not thousands of years. Not that it made any difference. In the flash of a moment, the security system withdrew, taking with it any lingering effects of the time distortion, making it as if it had never happened at all. The Doctor opened his eyes. He had passed the test.  
Taking a few steps back, he watched as the tube silently slipped down into the floor. At the same time, the floor around the tube seemed to liquify. It swirled around the center of the floor, the glow coming from it growing brighter with every passing second. Then, as the last of the tube vanished, the liquid parts of the floor converged, bulging upwards. As the bubbling tower of liquid grew it shifted and coalesced, solidifying into a raw purple crystal of softly glowing light. With each second that passed the crystal grew larger and large, until it was towering over the Doctor, reaching for a portal like shadow that had formed above, like the eye of a hurricane, slowly turning of its own accord.  
The Doctor took a deep breath. The crystal was beautiful in ways he didn’t have words for. The technology behind it was one the greatest achievements of the Timelords. The room was designed to create a solid interface with the time vortex itself, a physical construct that could be interacted with by those skilled enough to control the immense energy flowing through it. The crystal was essentially like jumping into the vortex and using your own mind as guide. It could bypass all the laws that prevented Timelords from deliberately crossing their own timelines, like looking at any page of the book an individual wanted, including the ending. River would be appalled.  
There was no hesitation. If there had been, he wouldn’t have been allowed to get to this point in the first place. With his eyes fixed, the Doctor reached out and placed his hand on the crystal.  
The effect was instantaneous. His consciousness was ripped from his body and thrown into the time vortex. It was completely overwhelming, like being dropped into the middle of an ocean. All of his personal history was before him, all the things that had come before this moment and all the things that still awaited him. He could reach back and bare witness to any moment his hearts desired, but this wasn’t about looking back. Instead he turned his gaze to the future, though that term held little meaning here. All that mattered was what he had yet to experience, though even that was not certain. Entering his own timestream like this was like taking a snapshot from his current relative position. Each moment was like a new perspective, and all he could do was see from the one he was at during this instance. He pushed his gaze onwards, seeing tomorrow, seeing next week, seeing thoughts and feelings of scenes playing out around him that had yet to happen. He didn’t need to see it all, just one moment, one question that had burned within him ever since the thought of losing Missy had entered his mind.  
Their regenerations.  
The thought was all he needed to home in on that moment. All at once he found himself looking at a ship, a massive colony ship moving slowly through space. It was moving weirdly though, and a moment later he saw why. Black holes were one of the few things powerful enough to interfere with the base force that governed time, the basic universal functions that underpinned all of reality and went beyond seconds and minutes and any other way of measuring the passage of instances. Even here, the black hole distorted the timeline slightly, blurring it, but the Doctor pushed harder and forced the moments into focus out of sheer will, or at least enough to find what he needed to know. He saw himself and Missy, he saw Bill and Nardole. And then he saw the cybermen. There was death and pain, so much fear that it seemed to change the very colour of the time around him. He saw Missy and not Missy, another Master. He saw the flash of a blade and the blast of a laser. And then there was an explosion, one powerful enough that he could almost feel the heat of it even from this perspective. That was when the stars begun to flicker and race, like an endless firework that punctuated the timelines of Timelords like chapter marks in a book. There was two of them. His and Missy’s.  
Reality snapped back into focus as the Doctor pulled his hand away from the crystal. His hearts were racing, both from the effort of his actions and from what he had seen, and sweat covered his skin. He stepped backwards, but his legs betrayed him and he had to sit down to avoid falling over. For a moment all he could do was sit there and watch the crystal as it continued to softly glow. The TARDIS let out a series of concerned sounds. The Doctor nodded.  
“I’m fine, I’m ok. You can shut it down now.” He said, and a second later the crystal begun to melt back into the strange liquid and sink back down to the floor. Though it was gone, the memories and events he had seen remained fresh in his mind. They weren’t far off, only a few months away, but it was enough time. He found himself smiling.  
Their plan would work. 

Nardole paced back and forth in his home at St Luke’s university. The accommodation was part of those assigned to staff. It had been easy enough to pull some strings and get his own place. It had proved useful in those moments where he needed his own space away from both the Doctor and the TARDIS. On the surface it just looked like a normal human room, nothing out of the ordinary, but that was how he had designed it to be. Half the rooms were covered by chameleon circuitry, hiding his personal armoury, workshop and computer room. It was here in this sanctuary that he had come up with some of his most impressive and useful creations, as well as performed all the necessary maintenance of his cybernetics. In all the time they had been here, the Doctor had only visited a number of times, each time being surprised that the place existed. If it weren’t for the TARDIS reminding him, Nardole was certain that he would quickly forget it permanently. Right now, that was what he was counting on.  
The Doctor was broken. He had fallen under the Mistress’s spell, he was certain of it. Every cell and circuit in his body told him that was the situation. There was no other way to explain it, no other way for his actions to make sense. She was using him, and he was too blind to see it. Missy had full control of the situation, and when she was ready, she would escape from this place and unleash her wrath on a universe that had dared to believe it was safe from her. And the Doctor wouldn’t be there to stop her. Worse still, he might even be at her side. That thought was terrifying on levels none of his onboard computers could calculate.  
He didn’t want to do this. The Doctor was his friend, but he wasn’t the Doctor anymore. He couldn’t be. They had an oath to fulfil, a scared duty to protect the universe. He couldn’t turn his back on that, even if the Doctor had, even if it meant doing something that made him sick to his stomach. He had explored every other option, every other idea to try and avoid this, but there was just too much he couldn’t rely on now. If Missy had control of the Doctor, that certainly meant she had control of the TARDIS.  
This had to be done.  
He had to uphold his vow.  
He had to save the universe.  
With a trembling hand, Nardole tapped a centimeter squared sized tile on the wall that revealed the true contents of his computer room. He crossed over to the nearest control console, then got to work.  
It wouldn’t be hard to contact the Shadow Proclamation.


End file.
